Genentech, Aviv Regev
Genentech announced that its current head of research and early development (gRED), Michael Varney, will retire at the end of July. Varney has been in the role since 2015, as well as being part of Genentech for the last 15 years.
Replacing Varney will be Aviv Regev, who steps into the role from her current position as chair of faculty and member of the executive leadership team at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
In addition to becoming the new head of gRED, Regev will also become a member of Roche’s corporate executive committee, as of the start of August 2020. The announcement stated that Regev will be based in San Francisco, US.
In terms of her background, Regev has a PhD in computational biology and has worked on deciphering molecular circuits that govern cells, tissues and organs in health and their malfunction in disease. She has experience using her background in computational biology to establish machine learning algorithms for gaining biological knowledge.
In terms of how this will be utilized, Roche’s CEO, Severin Schwan, stated that her expertise will be used to pursue “data-based drug discovery and development.”